Korean News! Kanehara: “You’re The Real Champion”

The underrated Atlanta Judo silver medalist Kim Min Soo (Mr. Shark), whose FEG contract seems to have ended, has told Korean MMA site MFight that he has received an offer from Bellator Fighting Championships. He says that he’s currently looking over the conditions of the contract and that nothing is set yet, but he wants to fight in America.

Kim has had surgery and has rehabilitated since last fighting in K-1 Hawaii in August of last year. He has started a new business as well during his time off. However, he has begun hard training again at Korean Top Team and received the offer from Bellator since then.

FMC 1 participant and SENGOKU Featherweight GP participant Kim Jong Man, former DEEP Lightweight champion Bang Seung Hwan, Hyong Yo Im, and Neo Fight 12 tournament winner Doo Won Seo are also looked at by Bellator. Bellator are also currently in negotiations about a possible TV deal in Korea.

Big Names At FMC 1

Some big names in Yoshihiro Akiyama, Kim Dong Hyun, and Igor Vovchanchyn will be present at the first event of Fighting Mixed Combative on August 16th. FMC representative Kim talked about wanting to assist Korean fighters, who have to do other work besides MMA to make it, at the FMC press conference earlier this week (we have seen K-1 fighter Jae Hee Cheon being sponsored by FMC for example).

This is one of the reasons (along with there being too few MMA events in Korea) that an MMA event was started. The company was originally supposed to be an MMA management company.

“The Korean Zombie” Speaks

SENGOKU Featherweight Chan Sung Jung was interviewed by MFight after his victory over Matt Jaggers on August 2nd. Jung said that he was happy that he won but that Jaggers was weaker than he thought. He wasn’t scared of him standing or on the ground during the fight.

Jung goes on to say that he talked with Kanehara after the event and according to Jung Kanehara told him: “You’re the real champion”. Jung has confidence in victory in a rematch but he had good things to say about Kanehara (he thinks that Kanehara is the type of fighter who uses his head when he fights). Jung says that in the near future he will challenge for the belt.

He received praise from Hioki after the event as well, who told him: “Very good triangle choke” to which Jung replied with: “Yours is more skillful”. Jung ends by saying that ideal for him is to fight as Hirota did against Kitaoka in the SENGOKU IX Lightweight title fight. He says that he will up his wrestling and physical strength training from now on. He hopes to be able to challenge Kanehara for the belt soon.